Karen Engelmann Weaves Visual Art and Literary Brilliance into Captivating Fiction
PHOTO: Author Karen Engelmann, whose storytelling bridges art, history, and human complexity, photographed in her creative space in Phoenix, Arizona.
Exploring Creativity, History, And Reinvention Through The Eyes Of A Multifaceted Storyteller
Karen Engelmann blends her background in design with her passion for storytelling, crafting richly layered novels that span centuries, cultures, and the endlessly fascinating complexities of human life.
Karen Engelmann has long been a creative force, moving fluidly between visual and literary disciplines to craft stories that enchant, provoke, and linger in the imagination. Best known for The Stockholm Octavo, her acclaimed debut novel set in 18th-century Sweden, Engelmann conjures historical fiction with the precision of a visual artist and the soul of a storyteller. A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice and translated into 14 languages, The Stockholm Octavo earned its place among modern literary gems—an intricately layered tale of cartomancy, court intrigue, and personal destiny, masterfully framed against the cultural theatre of the Gustavian Age.
A master of immersive historical fiction, Engelmann captivates readers with eloquent prose, unforgettable characters, and narrative structures as elegant as they are inventive.
In this Mosaic Digest interview, Engelmann shares insights from her remarkable creative journey—spanning continents, careers, and genres. From her formative years in Iowa to her art direction at IKEA in Sweden, to MFA studies in New York and new literary ventures in Phoenix, Engelmann’s life is as richly textured as her prose. Her upcoming works, including Miss Hall’s Last Costume and Meeting Martha, promise fresh terrain: speculative comedy, illustrated fiction, and deeply human storytelling shaped by time, memory, and reinvention. With a voice as bold as her characters, Engelmann reminds us that creative calling has no expiration date—and that the best stories are often found at the intersection of history, humour, and heart.
Your career began in design and illustration, including a significant tenure as Senior Art Director at IKEA. How did your background in visual arts influence the narrative style and descriptive imagery in The Stockholm Octavo?
Although always interested in writing, design and illustration were the focus of my college degree and work life. Color, form, composition, and space were in my visual toolbox and I brought those skills to writing. Setting and description provide a way to fully inhabit a book, especially one portraying a distant time and place. I aim to provide that experience in my work. (Design training was also useful for creating the diagrams, endpapers, and time line in the novel.)
“Color, form, composition, and space were in my visual toolbox and I brought those skills to writing.” – Karen Engelmann
In The Stockholm Octavo, the concept of the “Octavo” plays a central role. Could you elaborate on how you developed this unique system of cartomancy and its significance within the story?
The idea for the Octavo came early — eight characters who play a significant role in protagonist Emil Larsson’s destiny — but the challenge was finding a means to identify them. Research provided the key. Playing cards and gambling were a staple of 18th century European life and a major part of the narrative. Mysticism of all kinds was also wildly popular. (Fortuneteller Ulrica Arfvidsson read coffee grounds for King Gustav.) Divination with tarot cards was formalized by Antoine de Court Gebelin in 1783. Creating a unique cartomancy became my method for revealing the Octavo. I found the perfect deck in Jost Amman’s Charta Lusoria, a 16th century book of 52 playing cards portraying a mix of people, animals, and symbols for Mrs. Sparrow, the gifted seer in the novel, to interpret.
The novel is set during the Gustavian Age in Sweden, a period rich with political intrigue and cultural transformation. What inspired you to choose this particular era as the backdrop for your debut novel?
Living in Sweden for nearly a decade, it was impossible to escape the importance and popularity of the Gustavian age. When I began writing in earnest, my Swedish experience was a natural subject to explore. Gustav was waiting and impossible to resist: a flamboyant monarch loved by commoners and reviled by the nobility, author of unprecedented cultural flourishing, resident of Stockholm’s beautiful Old Town, exiting the stage assassinated at a masquerade ball. Big drama is great background.
Your journey to becoming a published author culminated with the release of The Stockholm Octavo just before your 55th birthday. Reflecting on this milestone, what challenges and triumphs stand out in your path to authorship?
The vocation of writing took a long time to embrace, although I loved reading and wrote terrible adolescent poetry. Visual art took precedence, but I started adding poems to drawings, then just writing poems, then taking classes. Life got in the way — jobs, children, etc. — but eventually I pursued a master’s degree that provided the foundation, structure, and deadlines needed to write my thesis, The Stockholm Octavo. That it went on to be published in fourteen languages was thrilling, especially in my fifties. If a calling is there, please answer. It’s never too late!
You’re currently working on new projects, including Miss Hall’s Last Costume and Midtown. Can you share insights into these works-in-progress and how they differ from or build upon your previous writing?
I have left 18th century Sweden behind for now and turned to more contemporary topics with two completed novels and one in process. The core requirements of writing remain: a good story, compelling characters, beautifully crafted.
Miss Hall’s Last Costume, a black comedy, is set in present time. Margaret Hall, 78 year-old retired professor of theatrical costume, is chosen as a trial patient for the Cardinal Longevity Clinic — a process that may reverse her physiological age by 20 years and add an equal amount to her life span. Success means escape from her court-ordered “incarceration” in Cape Tides — a Senior living community she loathes — but the inclusion of a memory protocol enhanced by psychedelics proves you can’t escape your past. By trial’s end, the story takes a turn into obsession, greed, betrayal, murder, costumes, love, and a way forward — just not the one Miss Hall expected.
Meeting Martha is lighter fare, set in the late 1980s. Ex-pat Anna Larsson’s settled life is upended when her husband’s former girlfriend — NYC theatre artist Martha Quincy—transforms Anna’s “script” via the contents of her closet with superb results, except when it comes to her marriage. When Anna’s husband announces a three-month trip, Anna arranges a sabbatical in New York to complete Martha’s process, using a class on the emerging digital workplace as an excuse. Administrative errors land her in “Getting Started with Greetings.” (Meeting Martha features 60 illustrations — a return to my visual arts roots.)
Midtown, set in the near future, is in process. The story follows Therese (Tree) Andrews, 19, an architecture student awarded a coveted internship at the Manhattan National Monument — a park established on the island post-cataclysmic storms. Tree anticipates an exciting, rewarding season filled with adventure and maybe romance. What she doesn’t foresee is the intense battle over the future of the island that she joins as player and pawn, risking her future to solve a secret architectural puzzle holding the key to a new New York.
Having lived in Sweden for a decade and now residing in Phoenix, how have these diverse cultural experiences shaped your storytelling and the themes you explore in your writing?
Living in Sweden broadened my perspective, especially growing up in Midwestern America. It gave me an intense appreciation of language, the challenge of being an immigrant (albeit highly privileged), and exposure to other history, cultures and lifestyles. This was the foundation of The Stockholm Octavo. The next 30+ years were New York City and environs — a dizzying mix of inspiring people, creativity, eccentric lifestyles, ambition, extremes of all kinds, and the challenges of urban life that provided inspiration for Meeting Martha. Children and apartment prices prompted a move to a suburb. It had different benefits, including a broader circle of people from newborns to elders, offering perspective on lifespan, legacy, and change. Miss Hall’s Last Costume began here. Moving back to NYC was a bonus, then the pandemic became a catalyst for Phoenix in February of 2020, where I am working on Midtown. The Arizona milieu will no doubt become a creative influence over time. Cactus and cowboys, anyone?
